New entry for Margaret Thatcher in the ODNB is the third longest after those of Shakespeare and Elizabeth I.
Photograph: PA

The editors of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography have been accused of taking a blinkered view of history after including only five black people in its 241 new entrants.

The latest edition of the online reference book, regarded as the pantheon of British history, features a mammoth biography of Margaret Thatcher for the first time. At 33,268 words in length it is behind only entries for William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I and ahead of those for Winston Churchill, Oliver Cromwell and Henry VIII.

Tackling lack of ethnic diversity in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography | Letters

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But, overall, fewer than a quarter of the new entrants are women, and only 2% are from black and minority ethnic [BAME] backgrounds. They include the activist and publisher Jessica Huntley and the Trinidadian airman and judge Ulric Cross. In an effort to maintain some historical perspective, entries on new subjects are not published until the fourth year after their deaths.

The ODNB now includes around 350 biographies of black people out of a total of more than 60,000 biographies, making black representation less than 0.6%.

The publisher, Oxford University Press, insists the latest crop of biographies reflects “a picture of Britain 40 or 50 years ago when BAME communities had far less opportunities”.

But black campaigners said they should do more to highlight Britain’s historical diversity.

Simon Woolley, director of Operation Black Vote, said: “The level of diversity on this list is appalling. It’s a tragedy for the black community, but also for society as a whole because what this represents is an extremely narrow view of great talent. If only Oxford could take off their blinkers they would find a deluge of black talent that has vastly contributed to making this society great.”

Lord Ouseley, former director of the Commission for Racial Equality, said: “I’m not surprised – for too long black lives have been airbrushed out of history. But this has been known about for years, so the onus is on Oxford to do the research and reflect Britain’s diverse history and the valuable contribution black people have made.”

Omar Alleyne-Lawler, from Black History Month, welcomed the inclusion of Huntley among the new entrants. But he added: “I think that the ODNB need to rely less on ‘Google research’ and to truly reflect the contribution black people have made.”

Alex May, research editor at the ODNB, suggested that the editors could not rewrite history. He said: “The vast majority of the new subjects (174, or 74%) were born between the two world wars (mostly in the 1920s), and were primarily active between the 1940s and 1980s.

“In effect, they provide a snapshot of Britain in the decades following the second world war, when women and people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds continued to suffer discrimination of various forms and were not as prominent in public life as is the case now.”

But he predicted that the ODNB would become more diverse in future. “We would expect the representation both of women and of people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds to expand considerably over time,” May said.

A spokeswoman added: “Our previous update included several BAME entries including the first black mayor of an English town (Thetford) and the first mixed-race MP (John Stewart, MP for Lymington 1832-1847).”

In an introduction to the 37th update of the ODNB, Cannadine defended the length of Thatcher’s entry by pointing out that she was “by far the longest-serving twentieth-century British prime minister and the first woman to hold the office”.

He added: “As a figure who was, and still remains, both very divisive and highly controversial, it was especially challenging to try to reach some sort of even-handed verdict about her.”

For a dictionary of national biography, Cannadine’s entry on Thatcher is notable for pointing out how regionally divisive her policies were. It argues she was “only prime minister of the south-east of England and the rural constituencies” in any representative sense.

The dictionary continues an audacious Victorian project to mark the lives of the great and the good, as well as the not so good.

It includes entries on Ronnie Biggs and Bruce Reynolds for their part in the 1963 Great Train Robbery and their subsequent notoriety. Cannadine says their entries “vividly remind us, all life is here ... ” He adds: “Inclusion in the ODNB is not a posthumous honour, but is on the basis of historic significance.”

Another notable villain is Mick McManus, described as “the wrestler the nation loved to hate”.

The new edition includes six winners of the Nobel prize, including two for literature: Doris Lessing and Seamus Heaney.

It also includes a clutch of sports journalists and broadcasters, among them the Guardian’s Frank Keating, Test Match Special commentator Christopher Martin-Jenkins, and Grandstand presenter David Coleman. It notes that Coleman’s “on-air gaffes gave rise to the Colemanballs column in Private Eye”.

In terms of education, Cannadine notes that the 241 new entrants are more socially diverse than usual.

He writes: “Perhaps appropriately, given Thatcher’s belief in self-help and meritocracy, the remaining entries for this update contain almost as many people who attended grammar schools as went to public schools: for example, Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Kilburn grammar schools each educated two subjects in this update, accounting between them for as many as Eton.”

Other notable new entrants include the writer Iain Banks, the actors Richard Briers, Richard Griffiths and Peter O’Toole, the sculptor Anthony Caro and the broadcasters Alan Whicker, David Jacobs and David Frost.